Matt Hancock, the new Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has spoken about his priorities for the health and social care system

Matt Hancock, the new Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has spoken about his priorities for the health and social care system

Matt Hancock, the new Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has spoken about his priorities for the health and social care system, focusing on workforce, technology and prevention.

Speaking to the Health and Social Care Committee Hancock outlined his plans on a wide range of issues affecting health and social care.

Hancock commented

‘GPs need more assistance to tackle with their substantial workloads.

There is currently a review of GP partnerships ongoing but I also want to see more training to those pharmacists based in GP surgeries and more staff to support them.

I want to support nurses in acute hospitals so they can become advanced nurse practitioners, providing more comprehensive care for patients while freeing up doctors to carry out more of the tasks they trained to do.

I want more people working in social care to feel able and supported to grow and develop their careers and step up into those senior roles that are crucial to providing leadership and determining the quality of care received by our loved ones.

And I want to expand the apprenticeships in both health and social care that in a previous ministerial job I introduced. Everyone should have a ladder they can climb and a career they can develop.

Emphatically the way forward is not to curb the technology – it’s to keep improving it and – only if we need to – change the rules so we can harness new technology in a way that works for everyone: patient and practitioner.

With an ageing society and 10 million more people projected to be living with a long-term condition by 2030, it is more imperative than ever that we look to make a radical shift in our approach – focusing on preventative, joined-up care that’s centred around individuals’.